Foraging parties, composed of small detachments, and which were usually
intrusted to young officers, served formerly to make good officers
of advanced posts; but now the army is supplied with provisions by
regular contributions: it is only in a course of partisan warfare that
the necessary experience can be acquired to fill these situations with
success.
A chief of partisans is, to a certain extent, independent of the army.
He receives neither pay nor provisions from it, and rarely succor, and
is abandoned during the whole campaign to his own resources.
An officer so circumstanced must unite address with courage, and
boldness with discretion, if he wishes to collect plunder without
measuring the strength of his little corps with superior forces. Always
harassed, always surrounded by dangers, which it is his business to
foresee and surmount, a leader of partisans acquires in a short time an
experience in the details of war rarely to be obtained by an officer
of the line; because the latter is almost always under the guidance of
superior authority, which directs the whole of his movements, while
the talent and genius of the partisan are developed and sustained by a
dependence on his own resources.